


arrival of the birds

by 4rl



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Someone You Meet at the Wrong Time Then Re-meet at the Right One, The Goldfinch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:24:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20729756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4rl/pseuds/4rl
Summary: Donghyuck steals a bag of chips. Donghyuck steals a painting. Donghyuck steals a moment. A boy. A bird.





	arrival of the birds

**Author's Note:**

> anything underlined is not written by me, and has been used with permission. 
> 
> disclaimer: the background reading for this is The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)...this fic genuinely makes no sense unless you’ve read it.

theres not much i can do but i can carry the umbrella.

Renjun stares at the downpour like the blaze in his eyes is enough to stop the rain. Any other day, Donghyuck could’ve believed it. But right now, he sees a shoulder frame too narrow to hold back the weight of the water drowning him out. 

He steps out from under the awning, and lifts his umbrella over both their heads. Transparent, little flames in blue and orange painted in stroked all around it—fires that won’t burn out. He looks back at Renjun again, the black of his blazer soaked through into something darker, his hands curled into fists, pale and thin, droplets crawling down the lines of his veins. If Donghyuck could just—

He doesn’t. He shifts the umbrella in his hand, pushes it up a little higher above them, the ground they cover becoming smaller—makes it so he can shove himself closer to Renjun, an elbow brushing his back, Donghyuck’s hand on his waist, the wet coat numbing the tips of his fingers. Inexplicably, something burning. 

Renjun takes a breath. Sharp. Donghyuck pushes him forward. Soft. 

theres not much i can do but i can listen.

“Donghyuck,” Renjun says, rolling over til they’re face to face, nose to nose. His eyes bright in the dark, under Donghyuck’s covers, small body in Donghyuck’s bed, like the space he takes up isn’t any bigger than the fist Donghyuck’s heart is the size of. 

“Donghyuck,” He whispers. His breath brushes against Donghyuck’s face, mint toothpaste and urgency. Something that crawls up Donghuck’s spine, the way Renjun’s angles jut out in shadows, the soft shape of his cheek something completely different now. 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says finally, and he inches his hand across his bunched up bed sheets, as Renjun lets everything go, a spill of tangled memories, disordered thoughts, messy emotions, Donghyuck’s brown palm covering Renjun’s. 

It’s almost nothing. It’s almost nothing. But it’s this—Renjun curling his thin fingers around him, Renjun’s voice always a whisper, but moving from sad to angry to frustrated to sad to mad to disbelieving to sad to angry to sad to angry to—a litany, a music piece. A song Donghyuck heard a million years ago on the radio, humming over his headphones until it’d hollowed a place for itself between his ribs, right below his heart—stayed in the empty place there, and he’d forgotten about it until now. 

Renjun. Boy in his bed. Thin legs, skinny knees, an elbow like a weapon. Tears that aren’t tears, shining glassy in his eyes. Staring at Donghyuck like he’s never seen any other person in the world. Donghyuck can’t do anything in this moment. 

He leans in, kisses the corner of his mouth. Tells Renjun to forget about it. 

theres not much i can do but i can steal you a bag of chips, some cough syrup when youre sick.

Renjun only ever gets sick once. He only stays for half a year, only enough to experience one cold season—but that’s enough. The leaves curl into browns, and Donghyuck’s breath starts coming out in puffs, and—Renjun shuffles into class one morning, the straight slope of his nose red. He sniffs once, and Donghyuck stretches his foot out and pushes the leg of Renjun’s chair away. 

Renjun stares up, unimpressed. But he’s gone before lunch even hits. Donghyuck sticks around for longer, leans against the wall opposite to his little brother’s class and waits for the bell to ring. Stares at the line of cubbies before him, brown wood, spots of colour dotting them—a pack of chips, half-crushed under a winter coat. He glances at the doorway, third-graders lining up against the blackboard, the hallway—empty except for him. Grabs the chips. Grabs his brother’s hand later, when the kid walks out—drags him all the way home. Grabs a plate and peanut butter and bread. Pushes it in front of him. 

Makes him swear not to open the door for _ anyone _ —“I won’t. I’m not a _ kid._”—texts his sister, _ again. _ And then locks the door and runs out. 

It’s a ten minute walk to the nearest drugstore, another ten minutes for the right bus to show up, and —five minutes in front of Renjun’s door, scuffling his feet with no purpose, the bottle of cough syrup in his pocket burning a hole through it. 

Renjun opens the door, a strip of skin under his nose rubbed raw, the scowl on his face turned further down when he sees it’s Donghyuck. 

“Don’t overthink it, Huang,” Donghyuck says, shoving the syrup and chips at him. He knows Renjun doesn’t like vinegar chips. He also knows it’d feel like too much if he did. Renjun’s skin burns against his where it brushes. It already feels like too much. “Just think about how I’m the sweetest, greatest, most thoughtful person on earth.” 

“Right,” Renjun says. And he doesn’t close the door. Just stands there with half his body behind it, like it’s shielding him from Donghyuck. Donghyuck shrugs his shoulders, has his hands shoved deeper into his pockets. 

“See ya,” he says. And eleven dollars and thirty three cents are wasted on that. Two minutes he couldn’t stretch out. In fear of—

His sister texts back when he slams the door shut behind him, _ lol r u going somewhere?— _little brother staring at the TV, staring in fascination at two cartoon monsters fighting each other. 

Nothing. It’s fine.

theres not much i can do but i can put on some music.

“This is the worst week of my life,” Renjun says. He’s talking about the painting on TV. The memorial special playing on a news channel that was randomly on. A teacher talking about the Dutch Golden Age. A newspaper print with a picture of a bird. Renjun’s stupid bird.

Donghyuck looks over at him—dark circles, darker eyes, a posture like smudged ink—says. “Maybe you just need to listen to better music.”

Renjun hasn’t put his bag down yet. But he snorts, the sound moving him one step closer into Donghyuck’s room. His orbit. Just a little closer, Donghyuck thinks, and he could pull Renjun in - make him forget about whatever’s burning him inside out, and just—just—look at him. Look at Donghyuck. 

Renjun doesn’t say anything. But Donghyuck isn’t looking, he’s pulling up a playlist, his bluetooth already on and—through the speakers, music plays. Renjun stares around at them—the sunlight pouring in through the windows, Donghyuck in gold on his bed, guitar streaming through from different corners of the room. In orbit. He inches his way closer.

Donghyuck stretches out his arms, slowly, like he’s not doing anything at all. Renjun draws himself in. 

For a moment it looks like this: two boys. Two boys on a bed. Two boys, one with his nose pressed into the other’s neck, and it’s almost like gold dust is flicking off onto him. One with brown hands, pressed between the other’s shoulder blades. If he stretched them out he could cover the entire length of his back. 

For a moment, it’s so still. For a moment—it’s almost—

And then it’s not. Donghyuck _ can’t _ let it be. His mouth touches Renjun’s ear, his teeth graze against the edge. Renjun breathes against his neck. Then, he moves. 

theres not much i can do but i can teach you a few phrases.

It doesn’t mean anything. It never means _ anything. _

Donghyuck knows who he is. Some Korean kid with three siblings, a house in the suburbs of a dying city, a quick mouth and quick feet. He doesn’t check off any boxes, and most people—most people look at him like he’s on fire. 

Renjun—Renjun looks at him like that. The first day they’d met, accent on his tongue when he’d asked for a name—Donghyuck’s mouth against his fist when he’d gotten the wrong one. His hands don’t shake out of nervousness—that’s anger. Donghyuck learns this once, and remembers it well. 

He has a tooth that’s too sharp, the only thing that really matches his viciousness; and Donghyuck teaches him—

“A secret language,” He swears, laughing into Renjun’s bare shoulder. “Totally fucking secret.” 

And Renjun watches him, bottom lip caught between a straight white line—a puncture spot, slowly turning red as Donghyuck makes his way up—mouth wet _ here _ on his chest, teeth barely biting _ here _ on his shoulder, something to bloom, purple and pink _ here _ on his neck. 

“No teeth, Huang,” he says, and Renjun’s mouth is bloody. 

“Sure,” Renjun says, pushing him over, ‘til he’s on top—fingers antsy, Donghyuck’s t-shirt bunched up in his grip until it’s off and on his floor. His voice is breathless. He kisses and still uses teeth. He licks stripes down Donghyuck’s chest, and still uses teeth. He leaves a matching hickey on the other side of Donghyuck’s neck, and still uses teeth. 

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, another round of laughter—this time, his head cradled into Renjun’s chest. “No teeth. Seriously, Huang.” 

But they go on—Donghyuck draws a line from Renjun’s belly button to his ribs, traces between them in feather light touches. Renjun copies him, but his nails scrape against each of Donghyuck’s moles, he presses too hard in certain stops, and presses their mouths together make up for every hiss. 

_ This is a language, _ Donghyuck thinks, _ this is a language and only you can learn it, and no one else will. _

“What?” Renjun says, but he’s smiling through it. Like he knows. His eyes are brighter than Donghyuck’s ever seen them.

“For real,” Donghyuck says. And it’s too much for this moment—Renjun _ happy. _ The breath quickly leaving his lungs. Blood circulating everywhere but away from his heart. “No teeth.”

“You don’t mind,” Renjun says, and they both sit up a little—and Renjun edges between his legs. He keeps coming closer. “You _ can’t _ mind.”

“Seriously,” Donghyuck says, regaining parts of himself. Reaching out to hold Renjun’s waist, hold him in place. “Girls won’t like it.”

“Girls?” Renjun says. The light in his eyes dies swiftly. Donghyuck loosens his grip, Renjun moves back.

“That’s just what this is, isn’t it?” A secret language. “Practice.”

“Practice,” Renjun says. “Sure.” 

He leans in, kisses Donghyuck without teeth.

theres not much i can do but i can put this dog on your chest and remind you that youre here and not there. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Renjun says. His voice is ragged, raw. A shade of red Donghyuck’s never seen on him, but he recognizes anyways. Meat packaged in shiny plastic at the supermarket, the kind that drips out pink water when you leave it on the counter. Something dead. Something tender. Something _ killed. _

He pushes away Donghyuck when Donghyuck reaches out. He throws his room into shreds. He’d never bothered to decorate it—white pillowcases, empty walls, blank desk—but now. Bedsheets on the floor, school workbooks torn into pieces, clothes kicked out from his suitcases. The floor a mess, the bed a mess, the boy who turned it this way—a mess. 

Donghyuck leaves then. Steps quietly through the empty halls of the house—hardwood floors don’t squeak underneath his feet and he feels like a ghost. He wonders if that’s how Renjun feels. 

He finds the dog—by the kitchen, it’s claws scratching against the marble, the cold seeping in through Donghyuck’s socks. Renjun doesn’t talk about it much, like most things, but he talks about it. It’s fluffy and white, and smaller than Donghyuck thought it’d be. 

But he picks it up, holds it close to his chest and walks back to where Renjun is. A cautious step halfway through the doorway, unsure if he can enter. When he peers his head in—the dog silent against his chest, quiet like Renjun said it is—there’s a crumpled figure of someone over the bed. And slowly, Donghyuck makes his way in. Wills for the floorboads not to creak. 

Holds the dog above Renjun’s chest, and sees how big it is. Whispers, “Renjun?”

Nothing. He’s still like a corpse. Gently, Donghyuck places the dog over him. 

Renjun blinks up. “I thought you left.”

“No,” Donghyuck says, stroking a hand through the dog’s back, fingers disappearing into the white fur. He wonders if Renjun can feel the touch. “You did.”

Renjun stares up at him. Stares until Donghyuck’s not sure what he’s really looking at. Whether he’s seeing right through him, or seeing something else entirely.

theres not much i can do but i can hold you. 

Renjun is bones and skin held together with anger, and when Donghyuck wraps his arms around that—it feels like he breaks himself apart. 

There’s so much shit going on, and Donghyuck understands next to none of it. But he understands this much: when Renjun shakes against him, it’s out of sadness. 

There’s not much he can do, but he only does what he can. Hold this bag of bones and skin and sadness together until he can do it himself.

theres not much i can do but i can kiss you goodbye. 

Renjun stares at him like he’s the last person left on the planet. Like he’s on fire. 

“Huang, I have something to tell you,” Donghyuck says. He takes a step closer, thinks he’s imagining the fire reflecting in Renjun’s eyes. 

It doesn’t mean much. Donghyuck’s told himself this over and over again. It doesn’t mean much. After schools spent wandering. Renjun staying over at his house for hours. Renjun watching him babysit. Renjun sleeping in his bed, wearing his clothes, copying off his homework. Doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t mean much—but. Donghyuck stole a painting. One Renjun spent hours talking about under Donghyuck’s covers. In between fumbling words, he’d said where it was hidden, and Donghyuck—two days before Renjun was leaving—had stolen it. 

He wants to give it back. He wants to say he has it. He wants Renjun to come back inside for one more time, and take back the painting. And he wants it not to mean much. 

Renjun stares at him. Donghyuck kisses him on the mouth. And runs. 

He doesn’t want to give it back.

-

theres not much i can do but we can drive around for a while. 

He shows up at Renjun’s engagement party. He wasn’t invited, but the doors are open—and, he’s more important than this anyways. 

He makes his way through the crowd. Right away, it’s obvious what kind they are, rich Asians who grew up with cars and tennis lessons, expensive perfumes mingling with tailored suits, immaculately dyed hair and sharper than sharp corners—he smiles, they smile back. Donghyuck knows this crowd. 

He waits by the edge of the room, picks up a flute every time a server passes him by and— 

“Hello,” someone says, Donghyuck turns his head—“I don’t think we’ve met? I’m Jaemin Na.”

“Ah,” Donghyuck says, remembering the name written on the event sign. “I’m an old friend of Renjun’s. Donghyuck.”

“Of course,” Jaemin has a wide smile, bright even teeth, and absolutely no soul. “I’m his fiancé.” 

“Of course,” Donghyuck says, flashing back his own smile. It’s quiet for a few moments, then - skinny frame, narrow shoulders, hair shorn neatly at the nape of his neck— 

“Renjun!” Jaemin calls out. Renjun looks up, finds him, a mild smile already in place. “I’ve found a friend of yours.”

Mild smile, flushed down the drain. His eyes are blank when he steps towards them. “Donghyuck.” 

“Jaemin,” Renjun says, turning to him, a palm flat over his arm. The cut of their suits complement each other. “Could you give us a minute?”

Donghyuck leads them to a shadowy corner, and Renjun’s face goes pale as he listens. 

“You can’t be here,” He says finally. Eyes flicking from the bright ballroom, to Donghyuck in the dark. “You should leave.”

“Without catching up?” Donghyuck teases, a crooked smile pulling at his lips. “I thought you would’ve missed me more than that.”

“I _ didn’t,_” Renjun says, a crease between his brows that straightens itself out in a blink. He looks out to the ballroom again. The rest of his life playing out in the men with fitted black suits and women in expensive gold earrings. His voice goes near-hysteric. “What the _ fuck. _”

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck says. Reaches a hand out to place on Renjun’s shoulder, where Renjun immediately reacts to grab his wrist. Their cufflinks don’t match. “But you needed to know.” 

“I need to get out of here.” Renjun says, staring at their shoes, the way the chandelier blinks off of the shine. 

“I can take you,” Donghyuck offers. And through the shadows, they leave. 

Donghyuck’s last glimpse of the ballroom is this: Na Jaemin gracefully twisting his neck, looking for his fiancé. Donghyuck’s hands wrapped around Renjun’s elbows, leading him out. 

“You stole my fucking painting,” is what Renjun says from Donghyuck’s front seat. He’d shoved himself out of the suit jacket without care—the front of his dress shirt is wrinkled now, the top buttons undone. “You _ stole— _” 

“You weren’t going to leave me with anything,” Donghyuck interrupts, choosing to keep his eyes on the road. “So—I figured I’d take a keepsake for myself.”

“The fucking _ painting? _ ” Renjun’s voice rises in octaves. The windows are closed, and no one can hear them but each other. “All the fucking things I would’ve given to you—the _ painting? _”

Donghyuck figured it out after. So long after. All of Renjun’s guilt—the anger, the sadness, the bitten-down nails and bloody mouth—it was always about the painting. 

_ There was a bird. There was a fire. And I had stolen it. _Whispers in a bed so long ago. A thread Donghyuck had stolen and run with it. A thread that looks like a red string, pulling them back together. He says. “It was the most important.”

Renjun scoffs. “Of course, that’s what you fucking cared about.”

But he stays in the car. Neither of them talk, but Donghyuck drives them around as Renjun stares out the window - every streetlight they pass, flashing his face white. A ghost.

if you get drunk and overwhelmed with it all and you try to burn the house down with us both inside it i’ll stop you and i’ll rearrange the couch cushions so your stepmother doesn’t see the burnt spot and in the morning when you wake up i won’t tell you what you’ve done because i know you feel enough guilt 

“You stole my painting, you put my name on it, and now—someone stole it from _ you._” Renjun says. 

They’re in his fiance’s apartment. The place is more cluttered than Donghyuck would’ve given him credit for, books and picture frames thrown all over the place. Every photograph of Renjun is no less than six-months old. There’s nothing here that looks like it could belong to him. 

_ Wrong, _ he thinks—a black jean jacket thrown over a chair, too small to be Jaemin’s. Donghyuck corrects him. “My old girlfriend stole it from me.”

“And that’s better?” Again, the edge of hysteric. Renjun sitting on the other end of the couch from him. The distance is the length of eight years apart, until Donghyuck stares back at a face he doesn’t know, but recognizes.

“I just have to say sorry,” Donghyuck says. Like it’s that simple, because to calm Renjun down—he knows it has to be. He doesn’t say a lot of things. Like how they haven’t spoken in two years. How Donghyuck hadn’t even realized it was gone. Like how she might put it on the market, and both of them could be fucked for years. This is the easy part. Making it feel like it’s not much. “It’s that easy.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.” Renjun stares at him. They’re sitting in the dark because Jaemin left hours ago, and Renjun snuck him in, paranoid about someone finding them awake. “I’m going to kill you."

Donghyuck smiles at him. A real one. 

Renjun crumbles. He presses his forehead to the cushion, and breathes himself ragged. Donghyuck thinks about all the things he didn’t know. All the things he missed. About the piece of himself he carved out years ago and left on the ground, in the place he’d pressed his lips against someone else’s and watched them leave him. 

“You don’t really love him, do you?” He says. Conversationally. Like it’s not late in the night, and he’s not hiding out in _ his _ apartment. Like they’ve been friends for years, and this isn’t a chance encounter.

“What the hell,” Renjun says. He stares at Donghyuck, same as he did all those years ago. Eyes bright with anger. A blaze like a forest fire that could knock out entire ecosystems. 

“I could,” He says. “And, once I do—we’d be perfect.”

“What’s his favourite colour?” Donghyuck asks.

“If I said blue, he’d make it blue.”

“What’s mine?”

“Red.” 

They look at each other. 

In the morning—just as the sun rises and washes them over in light—Donghyuck drags Renjun to the bedroom. Makes sure the couch is in place. Leaves everything so it looks like nothing ever happened. Renjun went to sleep in Jaemin’s bed, and will wake up to him opening the door, and Jaemin will see his the rest of his life in the way his smile opens. 

theres not much i can do but i can walk back into your life after years and years apart and solve the biggest problem in your life 

Renjun stares up at him with red-rimmed eyes, and Donghyuck holds out—

“Is that—” 

“Yes, it’s the painting.” Donghyuck holds it out to him and Renjun all but leaps towards him, hands like claws across Donghyuck’s shoulder, his bright, brighter than stars eyes _ staring. _

“How,” _ How, how. _Is what he asks. He doesn’t say it, he doesn’t grab at the square of paper in Donghyuck’s hand, he doesn’t care about the painting. It’s Donghyuck he stares at. Boy on fire.

“I just asked,” Donghyuck says. He tries to remember himself - boy on fire, quick mouth, quick feet. He tries to say it like it’s nothing. 

Renjun claws into his shoulder, and Donghyuck moves him away—gentle as he can, but it still feels like he’s tearing them apart. He places the painting in Renjun’s hands. Renjun unwraps it, brown paper falling apart in his hands, twining winding around both their wrists because Donghyuck has yet to let go, his hands the same shade of brown. His body in the same state of falling apart.

It’s a bird—a tiny, golden thing. Strokes of black and grey and yellow. Donghyuck stares at Renjun’s hand, the smudged birthmark like a half-washed ink stain. A memory in the process of being forgotten. These past few days— 

“Your bird is safe,” Donghyuck says. Renjun stares at it, the glow of the goldfinch reflected on his face—a light, something alight. Donghyuck’s chest a flutter of wings beating against his ribs. Renjun stares up at him. Donghyuck’s chest, a light, something alight. Renjun’s blinking away his tears like a flutter of wings. 

“Thank you,” He says. 

A memory scratched out of a forgotten corner—the same look, such a long time ago—the same feeling a long time ago—Donghyuck says _ I need to tell you something _ —Renjun says _ I have to leave now _—neither of them say what they mean. Donghyuck’s heart feels like a cage. A flutter of birds, desperate to fly. Desperate to spread their wings. 

“It was never about the painting,” Donghyuck says, almost in the same desperate way. Renjun has to know. He has to _ know, _ right?

Renjun sees it. “No. _ Fuck no. _ No. Fuck no.”

“You had to know,” Donghyuck says. “You had to.”

“I’m getting married,” Renjun says. 

“But you won’t,” Donghyuck says. 

A stutter. Donghyuck inches closer. They used to be the same height, but now—now, Donghyuck is taller, and Renjun hovers somewhere near his chin. Renjun has to stare up. Donghyuck has to look down. It’s not the same at all. 

Renjun lets his head fall onto Donghyuck’s chest. Black hair brushing against his buttons. Donghyuck—

“How do you—” Renjun says, a secret language—the way his breath ghosts through his thin dress shirt. 

—fixes his hair, so it doesn’t get tangled. 

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't read this fucking book LMAO
> 
> text credits.  
1\. [there's not much i can do](https://theearchivist.tumblr.com/post/186599868055/theres-not-much-i-can-do-but-i-can-carry-the)  
2\. [if you get overwhelmed with it all](https://theearchivist.tumblr.com/post/186600700710/if-you-get-drunk-and-overwhelmed-with-it-all-and)
> 
> [here](https://fwcu.tumblr.com/post/618580952760958976/arttheft) is a full list of credits for this fic (i.e - things _i_ stole)


End file.
